Whenever I come now to the unequaled approach to New York I
wonder what Americans must think of the approach from the sea to London!
How different are the mean, flat, marshy banks of the Thames and the
wooden toy lighthouse at Dungeness to the vast, spreading Hudson with
its busy multitude of steamboats, and ferryboats, its wharf upon wharf,
and its tall statue of Liberty dominating all the racket and bustle of
the sea traffic of the world!
That was one of the few times in America when I did not miss the poetry
of the past. The poetry of the present, gigantic, colossal and enormous,
made me forget it. The "sky-scrapers"--what a brutal name it is when one
comes to think of it!--so splendid in the landscape now, did not exist
in 1883, but I find it difficult to divide my early impressions from my
later ones. There was Brooklyn Bridge though, hung up high in the air
like a vast spider's web.
Between 1883 and 1893 I noticed a great change in New York and other
cities. In ten years they seemed to have grown with the energy of
tropical plants. But between 1893 and 1907 I saw no evidence of such
feverish increase. It is possible that the Americans are arriving at a
stage when they can no longer beat the records! There is a vast
difference between one of the old New York brownstone houses and one of
the fourteen-storied buildings near the river, but between this and the
Times Square Building or the still more amazing Flat Iron Building,
which is said to oscillate at the top--it is so far from the
ground--there is very little difference.
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